Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Eva Longoria's story had all the makings of a gossip mag bonanza. Attractive actress is betrayed by her celebrity husband, in her case NBA star Tony Parker. But instead of getting sympathy, now the Star has a "world exclusive" that Eva has stole an NBA star from his baby mama.

Names are not named, but I'm assuming the star is someone other than Parker.

So instead of being a younger Sandra Bullock on TV instead of in the movies, Eva is being cast as the oldest Kardashian sister, albeit with actual talent.

It is the rare reality TV star who can get good press in the supermarket rags a year and a half after her show is off the air, but Kristin Cavallari appears to be that rare individual. Weekly Life & Style thinks their readers still want to know about her love life, but not enough to put a picture of her intended on the cover. You'll have to open the magazine to find out to whom she is engaged, and that is something I don't do on general principles.

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

If tabloid cover stories are any indication, American Idol is fading and Dancing With The Stars is the new top dog among reality TV shows now. The Enquirer says Ricki Lake is pregnant and calls this a "DWTS secret".

Best wishes to all concerned, if this is true. We will see when this story is reviewed at the end of June next year.

This week's Meanest Story competition is not as mean as recent weeks when there have been several Brave Last Days Alerts. Two reasons for this are that the low rent Examiner wasn't delivered to the usual places in Oakland and the Globe had a massive cover story that isn't mean. They have a list of old detective and cop shows with pictures of the stars. They may say some of them are going through hard times in the story inside, but on the cover it's just an invitation to nostalgia. Here are the stars and shows mentioned, each with a picture. There is a promise of an 11 page spread with even more photos. Here is the list from the cover, both of stars and shows.

The Globe has such a chock full of stars "Where Are They Now?" grab bag story on the cover that it has to be split into two posts AND an extra blank post for label overrun. After naming a whole lot of stars, there is an extra picture with the caption "Secrets of The Mod Squad!" with none of the actors named.

For the record, left to right are Michael Cole, Clarence Williams 3rd and Peggy Lipton.

The Globe is OUTRAGED! Pam Anderson is slated to play the Virgin Mary on a Canadian TV comedy. The Globe also did not include a picture of Ms. Anderson to go along with their OUTRAGE, so no picture will be included here either.

Welcome to gossip heck, Connie Britton! The actress best known for the TV series Friday Night Lights has adopted a baby boy from Ethiopia named Eyob and People puts mother and son on the front cover. This is the most positive type of story the gossip rags report on and does not count as "pulling a Bullock", since Ms. Britton is in no way trying to change the topic from bad publicity that has been dogging her. She hasn't been a topic of gossip in the supermarket rags at all.

Sunday, November 27, 2011

Jessica Simpson is getting a lot of coverage in the past few months about her long rumored and now confirmed pregnancy and possible trouble with upcoming wedding. She got the ring a year ago, so you can hardly say she's rushing things. Here are the headlines.

The royal wedding this year turned Pippa Middleton into a gossip star on this side of the Atlantic. On this week's cover, the Globe says Prince Harry has proposed to "Kate's sister", but on their website they make it clear it's Pippa.

I don't believe it for a second, but I publish this stuff regardless of believability. That's kind of the point.

Star has one of those grab bag "bad help" stories dominating the front cover. This time it's Hollywood stylists dishing dirt. First there's a list of "Guess who" gossip, followed by specific insults. The part of the story that listed who smelled bad was published already as a Meanest Story of the Week nominee.

Saturday, November 26, 2011

The headline only mentions Brad Pitt as a source for a rumor that the Jolie-Pitt clan will be adding another member, but the picture on the cover is of BrAngelina, so this story gets a label mentioning both of them. With these two, it may not be a Bun In The Oven Alert™ per se, but that's the only label I have that fits.

It should also be noted that a new addition to the Jolie-Pitt clan is a rumor as popular as the Kardashian pregnancy stories, and we haven't had one of those in at least two years.

I have little respect for the low rent Examiner, but they deserve credit as the only magazine that was calling for the re-opening of the Natalie Wood case over the past few years. Now the big guns get in on the act, People and the National Enquirer. Here are the headlines.

Star has a huge grab bag story dominating the front cover of dish from stylists. While none of it is very flattering, they have a small section of pictures of celebrities who smell bad. They include:

Brad Pitt, who has B.O.

Robert Pattinson, afficted with foot fungus

rocker Lenny Kravitz, also with bad body odor and

Daren Kagasoff, who has bad breath

This is the first mention in the tabloids for Kravitz and Kagasoff. Kagasoff is the star of the Disney TV show The Secret Life of an American Teenager, but he does not get the label DisneyTeen, because he wasn't a teenager when principal photography began on the show back in 2008.

All in all, it's not a very mean week in the supermarket rags. The low rent Examiner wasn't delivered in Oakland yet and the Globe eats up the majority of the cover with a "Where Are They Now?" story without any dire predictions of anyone dying. The meanest story in the consistently mean Enquirer has the following headlines, listed as "Exclusive breaking news!"

Last year, we got two separate expiration dates for Michael Douglas in the gossip rags. One said he would be dead by last January, obviously not true. There was also a story in the Globe with the big headline NO HOPE FOR MICHAEL DOUGLAS with friends fearing that Thanksgiving 2010 would be his last.

We just had Thanksgiving 2011. Hope you enjoyed yours as I enjoyed mine. And special good wishes to Michael Douglas and his family, hoping he has several more to enjoy in the future.

Thursday, November 24, 2011

Six cover stories about the Demi Moore-Ashton Kutcher divorce announcement this week. The only magazine that might have put it on the cover and didn't was the Enquirer. The Globe and the low rent Examiner aren't interested in people this young, except for British royalty.

Lots of stories about J. Lo this week in the gossip rags. There are two stories about her love life and she's mentioned in a "Stylists Tell All" grab bag that will be covered tomorrow. Here are the love life headlines.

Once again, OK! cements its reputation as the nicest if not most reliable of the gossip rags. The idea that they are getting back together again is extremely far-fetched if there is a shred of truth in all the other dozens of stories we've been bombarded with over the past two months. In fact, you have to go back to late September to find the last positive cover story about Kim'n'Kris, when OK! reported she was pregnant.

Fresh trash on Thursdays! How does a guy get in the Top Ten of mentions in gossip rags? Well, either he's the President of the United States or he's squiring some woman in also in the Top Ten. Justin Theroux has chosen Option #2. According to Star, some woman he previously squired confronted his current girlfriend Jennifer Aniston.

Fresh trash on Thursdays! As I have noted before, other celebrities actually have to do something to get on the cover of the gossip rags. Angelina Jolie merely has to exist. On the cover of In Touch is a picture of her with several of her daughters and several unflattering headlines from an assistant who is now spilling the beans.

Fresh trash on Thursdays! Welcome to gossip hell, Bruce Jenner! For the first time in at least two years, the most invisible adult in the Kardashian family circus gets on the cover of a supermarket gossip rag with a rumor of divorce from the woman who pimps out her own daughters for fame, now including Jenner's underage biological daughters.

I'm old enough to remember when he was a great athlete, but I also remember even then he made some questionable decisions trying to turn a decathlon championship into a career.

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Us Weekly calls Cameron Diaz and Diddy (or P. Diddy or Puff Daddy or Sean Combs or whatever name he is using now) a "shocking new couple".

I personally am not shocked. They are both rich, famous and single, he's 42 and she's 39 so there isn't a massive age difference or any thought of them being "too young". They both seem to be in it for a good time.

Tanya Tucker and Glen Campbell used to date back when Reagan was president, but it did not end well. (Neither did the Reagan presidency, but that's a story for another day.) In any case, the hatchet is not yet buried and the low rent Examiner wants us to know about it. Here are the headlines.

The Sun predicted the end of the world again this week, but didn't give a testable date so I won't print what they said. This means the only contribution from that cover is the Weekly World News story about a taxidermist living on roadkill for 30 years.

News has been slow on the Real Housewives front for a few weeks now, but Kim Zolchiak just had a modest little $1,000,000 wedding and Weekly Life & Style thought we in the 99% would like to see pictures from this opulent display.

Monday, November 21, 2011

American Media Inc. has shown a keen interest in the 2012 election. It can be taken for granted that all stories about Obama and his family are negative, but they are mainly in the Globe and the low rent Examiner. The flagship National Enquirer leaves Obama alone for now.

It's a very different story when dealing with the Republican candidates. They loved the idea of Donald Trump for president, a truly ridiculous concept from the very start, but they have been viciously against several other candidates. They sniped at Sarah Palin when she was still being coy about running, they said Rick Perry had ties to the Klan, and now they set their sites on fading former front-runner Herman Cain. After a story in the Enquirer last week about Cain and a White House intern, now the Globe has a headine about a "truth detection test" that proves Herman Cain is a liar.

So far, Mitt Romney has largely been spared, with one "prophecy" in the Sun, a magazine so far down the food chain that no one pays attention. (Well, no one but me, but I'm a little OCD about this stuff.) It will be interesting to see if the Enquirer starts writing bad things about Newt Gingrich. It's not like he has no skeletons in his closet.

The Globe and the low rent Examiner take turns on putting Regis Philbin on their cover and most of the stories have a negative slant. For example, back last January the Globe said Regis was leaving his show because he was dying. Now that the show actually is coming to an end, they give him a surprisingly nice farewell. Here are the headlines.

More "Hey, Old Timer!" gossip from the Globe, one of the two supermarket rags that skews older and more morbid than the rest. (The other is the low rent Examiner, a fellow kennel mate at American Media, Inc., owner of the five meanest of the American gossip magazines.) The sub headline reads "secret hospital drama". "Drama" is code for a story that isn't even remotely similar to the sensationalistic headlines and often false in the bargain.

The story of the sex scandal is definitely the kind of story that has to get a mention in the gossip rags, and it falls upon People and the National Enquirer to do the work, a classic Luke vs. Darth match-up.

People has their Sexiest Man Alive issue once again, and just like last year, I had to say, "What? That guy?" when I saw their choice, Bradley Cooper. (Last year it was Ryan Reynolds.)

Also mentioned by first name only were George (Clooney), Brad (Pitt), Zac (Efron), Kellan (Lutz, the reason this gets the Planted Crap label), Justin (guess which one, they tease? I looked inside. Theroux)

They also had a smaller picture of Ryan Gosling and a promise of 123 super hot guys inside.

Notice last year's Sexiest Man Alive isn't even worth a mention on the cover, but another Ryan gets a picture.

Friday, November 18, 2011

Now that the latest installment of Twilight is out, the level of planted crap has to rise.

It's like a law of physics or something.

In any case, Rob want to marry Kristen, according to this headline. Under my cynical hermit crab shell there is still a little bit of romantic that hopes this is true. They look so cute in this picture.

Now that the latest installment of the Twilight movies is out, expect the level of planted crap to rise. Star has a mean streak even when it prints planted crap, and they say one of the young men in this picture (Kellan Lutz, Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner) is coming out soon. here are the headlines.

Twilight hunk: I'm gay!

Who will make the shocking announcement?

Not that it means a thing, but Kellan is the only one who hasn't had his name plastered all over the gossip rags famously squiring a lovely young thing. Rob is still deeply in gossip mag love with Kristen Stewart (see story above, also planted crap), while Taylor Lautner was dating Taylor Swift a few boyfriends back.